


When the fox hears the rabbit scream

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [62]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Assassins & Hitmen, Backstory, Dark, Limbo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:51:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time he meets the man who will be Eames, at the ancient age of twenty-one, the man who will be Arthur has killed nearly fifty men.</p><p>By time the best point man in the business is introduced to the greatest forger in the world, that number has tripled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the fox hears the rabbit scream

**Author's Note:**

> Title: When the fox hears the rabbit scream  
> Fandom: Inception  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Hannibal  
> Warnings: dark; maybe a bit AUish?  
> Pairings: Arthur/Eames  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 655  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: Any, any/any,
> 
>  _Tryin' to live and love_  
>  With a heart that can't be broken  
> Is like tryin' to see the light  
> With eyes that can't be opened  
> Yeah, we both carry baggage  
> We picked up on our way  
> So if you love me, do it gently  
> And I will do the same  
> (Glass, Thompson Square)

By the time he meets the man who will be Eames, at the ancient age of twenty-one, the man who will be Arthur has killed nearly fifty men.

By time the best point man in the business is introduced to the greatest forger in the world, that number has tripled.

(Before he was a point man, Arthur had been an assassin. Before he was an assassin, [name redacted] had been in black-ops. Before he was in black-ops, there had been extenuating circumstances involving a father who owed people, a mother who was never there, and traveling around a lot. And if men happened to vanish wherever Dad stopped to hide for awhile, well. Who ever thinks a kid could've done it?

The man who would be Arthur had never been a child.)

Eames smiles at him, slow and sweet, and says, "Aren't you a peach."

Arthur raises an eyebrow, replying, "I assure you, I am not."

(Like recognizes like, after all. A predator always knows a predator.)

Cobb thought he was saving a kid who'd gotten in over his head. The man who would be Arthur has always looked young and innocent. And Cobb didn't believe in what the military was doing. So when he and his wife ran from Project Somnus for safety beneath Miles' power in the scientific community, he brought a soldier with him.

Or, well, he _thought_ he brought a soldier with him. What he brought was [name redacted] who became Arthur three days later, when he dreamed up the perfect companion in Limbo.

( _Ah, Limbo_ , he whispered, _how I have missed you_.)

(In the seedy underbelly of London, about to burst onto the world stage of crime, a man opens his eyes after sleeping for days, trapped in Limbo, and he murmurs, _See you soon, love_.)

An assassin, a forger, and a thief. One of these things is not like the other, but the man who will be Eames in just a few more months never cared. His father taught him to lie, and his mother to paint, and when he double-crossed the crime lord in charge of his home town, he ended up on the wrong side of a dozen powerful men, but walked out unscathed, leaving corpses in his wake. He could've taken over.

Instead he joined up with an experimental program and learned to dream like he never had before, and when he wondered what he could change, he ended up changing himself into something new.

And he fell into Limbo, where he fashioned the most perfect companion, and he opened his eyes when it should've been impossible, and he smiled at the doctor who'd been bought by men who wanted him dead, and left a few more corpses in his wake.

There is no recorded survivor from the massacre of Project Somnia. And the authorities never did find whoever was responsible.

By the time they knew to look, he was on the ground in Mombasa and tracking down a chemist most of the medical community had written off.

Eames was born on his first job as a dream forger.

It wasn't until he met Arthur, months later, when he truly breathed for the first time.

(Like recognizes like.)

( _I dreamed of you_ , Eames whispers, back to back with Arthur amidst bullets and screams.

 _I called you_ , Arthur murmurs, throwing a knife and hitting some poor bastard in the eye.

Limbo made them, and the world will recoil from them, and Eames grins at Arthur, and Arthur smirks at Eames, and oh, what fun they'll have.)

If asked, anyone in dreamsharing will say that the best are Arthur and Eames.

If asked a different question, anyone in dreamsharing will say, _Be careful. There's something – off about them_.

Cobb will never believe it, but Saito and Yusuf see it, and if she lasts, Ariadne will, too.

(Whenever they dream together, Arthur and Eames fall into Limbo and play blood-filled, exhilarating games.)


End file.
